


The Arching Sky is Calling

by Tieleen



Category: Firefly, Inception (2010)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-24
Updated: 2011-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-15 01:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/155610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tieleen/pseuds/Tieleen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Got some paying customers want ferrying, sir," she says. "Seems they got a job waiting on Ashtoreth. Need to see a man about his brain."</p><p>Mal just gawks at her, until, finally, it sinks in. "Oh, no," he says. "I'm not letting them on my gorram ship."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Arching Sky is Calling

Mal first hears of it through Wash picking up a coded wave on the Cortex. Well, no; Mal first hears of it through coming onto his bridge to find his pilot idling around, while Zoe frowns at the screens and taps and swipes things like the wind on Shadow winter evenings.

"If you're gettin' tired of your job," he tells Wash, "I'll pick up another pilot on the next stop and let you go off. Don't go getting my first mate doing your tasks for you, she's got enough of her own."

"Seems to me, sir," Zoe says, still fiddling about, "as you'll be completely without a first mate then, you're best off this way."

"Like I'd be letting any of you pilot my ship," Wash says, scornful. "No offense, babe."

"Better you be apologizing to the Captain," Zoe says.

"The captain? He's not any more of a – ah," he says, catching Mal's raised eyebrow. "We're still calling her your ship, aren't we?"

"That we are," Mal agrees.

Wash nods, clearly putting aside the entire matter.

"Well, anyhow," he says. "She's not piloting, she's trying to make out this message. We just got it in, clearly addesssed to us, only I can't make heads or tails out of it."

"Oh, huai dan," Mal says. "Any chance it don't lead to any headaches, Zoe?"

"Hard to say, sir," she says. "Feel pretty sure I know this code, but can't pin it down."

"You let me know if I need to take a try," Mal says, and walks away, feeling forebodings all the way down to his soles.

 

~*~*~

 

They're setting up for dinner when Zoe comes in to say she's cracked it.

"All right," Mal says, cautious. He sets down the glasses he's carrying, then turns to her. News seems neutral enough from her expression, but you often can't tell with Zoe. "Well? You going to share with the rest of us?"

"Got some paying customers want ferrying, sir," she says. "Seems they got a job waiting on Ashtoreth. Need to see a man about his brain."

Mal just gawks at her, until, finally, it sinks in. "Oh, no," he says. "I'm not letting them on my gorram ship."

"You don't have to, sir," she says. "I'm sure they can find their own way in no problem."

Mal groans. He can hear her laughing at him, not that she's doing more than smiling a very little bit.

"You mean Mal?" Kaylee says from behind him, suddenly gleeful. "Oh, shiny! I like Mal."

Mal turns, ignores Simon's confused frown on his way to train his glare at her. "Kaylee, is there anyone in this gorram 'verse you _don't_ like?"

She just beams more brightly at him, not that he expected any better. "Well, there was that one that shot me, cap'n. Didn't like him at all."

"We all like Mal," Zoe says, and she's smiling full-out now. "Captain likes her, too, so don’t let him guilt you, Kaylee."

"As if I would," Kaylee scoffs. She starts to say something more, then pauses. "Do you think she'll be bringing Mr. Cobb? And Arthur?"

Mal fights down the urge to groan again, or worse, put his face in his hands. "Ta ma de. Most like she will. And whoever else she's picked up on this hare-brained crusade of hers."

 

~*~*~

 

That whoever else turns out to be a whole bunch of folks Mal's never laid eyes on before, not that this makes him any less inclined to think well of them. Truth told, right this minute, it really gives them more than a few points up in his estimation – he'd flat out assume they were no harm at all, if it weren't for the company they're choosing to keep.

Of course, that's before Kaylee shouts, "Eames!" and comes running down the hatch, in what turns into a full-on flying leap at a man hanging back behind Arthur's shoulder. Eames – of _course_ it'd be Eames – staggers but stays upright, holding her up much more closely than Mal's fully glad of. They're both laughing, though, and he knows there's more than one person around who'll give him grief if he as much as tries to say a word.

He squares his shoulders instead, and scowls at the person beaming at him at the head of the group. "Mrs. Cobb," he says. "Been a while."

"Captain Reynolds," she grins, and just like that it's like they're playing at formality, sharing a joke together. She'd always been able to do that, and it's always been infuriating. "Been too long."

"Some as might say that," he says, because Zoe is giving him a very pointed look from where she and Wash are greeting Arthur and Cobb.

She steps forward and kisses his cheek, done and over before he has time to so much as tense up, and then she's got his hand in hers and she's tugging him, gentle but relentless, towards the strangers lurking uncomfortably at the back of the group. "Come meet Ariadne and Yusuf," she says. "You'll like them."

 

~*~*~

 

Simon is staring. "Dr. Thean?"

"Oh," Eames says. "Huh. This is unexpected. Simon Tam, wasn't it? Fancy meeting you here."

Kaylee's looking delighted, the way she always does about Eames' bottomless ability to get people turned three ways around. Mal supposes he's got no say about that, either, what with a crook being a crook and all. Still. It's unseemly.

"This is Eames, Simon," she says. "He's the best con on this here corner of the 'verse. Was he playing a doctor down on Osiris?"

Simon's eyes are even wider now. "Uh, not exactly," he says. "He was – 'playing' – my department head."

Eames grins when they all turn to look at him. "They had an opening."

"Don't know why you're so excited," Jayne grumbles. "He steals things. We steal things. Only we don't take our whole life to pull one ruttin' job. Got some respect for things that count, too." He scowls all around the room when they all groan. "Ain't none of you don't know I'm right!"

"Oh, give it a rest, Jayne," Kaylee says, "He stole Vera _once_ ," and Mal would be in full agreement with her if he didn't remember that hole in his stomach when they'd come back to where his boat should had been, the day it _hadn't_ been one of Jayne's guns.

He's a little bitter still that they'd all forgotten it so quickly, been so willing to write it off and laugh. He knows Eames well enough that he doesn't trust him further than River can throw him, and that had been Serenity he'd been off and gone with, and those few moments were far too long.

"You can't throw him off the ship, sir," Zoe says quietly behind him. "Might as well get that look off your face." And when Mal scowls into the middle distance, not turning around, she adds, "It's all right. We'll be watching him."

"See that you do," Mal says, and walks off on Simon interrogating Eames on how he managed to pull his stint off undetected, what he'd been trying to achieve. Even listening to Book and Cobb, off by the table with the little girl Mal's folk brought with them, deep into what can only be a very involved philosophical debate on some gorram thing or other – even that's got to be better than this.

 

~*~*~

 

"How have you been doing?" Cobb says.

"Can't complain," Mal says. Book is watching him with quiet bemusement. What's more disturbing, up by the railing Mal and Inara are in the happy process of getting along like a spaceship on fire.

"I notice the Alliance's still in place," he adds. "Haven't had much luck lately?"

Cobb smiles at him, calm as anything and too mature to snipe back, and Mal lets himself remember with no little resentment that he _likes_ Dom Cobb, likes his wife, too, for all that they imagine they're going to save the whole gorram 'verse from itself, for all that they're running headlong into bringing disaster on themselves and everyone around them, and one day – maybe today – that might well be Mal and his crew.

"It's a long game," Cobb says, and Mal has to snort and shake his head, because he says it wry, because they _know_ how ridiculous they are and it's much easier when Mal can forget that.

Cobb is Core, born and raised. He didn't run from there, has no reason to stay out here but his will and his wife's fight. His fight, too, Mal supposes, but Cobb was never in the war, never flew the planes, stayed an academic because there was no reason not to; never laid in Mal's bed, head on his chest, and talked in that soft, strange accent about watching too many people who'd talked the same way die. It might well be Cobb's fight too, after all these years, but Mal can't find it in himself to think of it that way.

"It's good to see you," he says, without meaning to. Cobb smiles warmer, clasps his shoulder. The shepherd's smiling too now, like he approves, and Mal longs to tell him to mind his own business, but doesn't.

He's about to say something to get them all off this nonsense, but then someone says, "Oh!" very loudly, and all three of them spin around to see Ariadne, her eyes wide, Arthur, looking badly stunned, and River, standing calmly on one foot and weighing Arthur's die in her hand.

"Oh, tzao gao," Cobb mutters.

Ariadne's got her hand clamped on her pocket, clearly making absolutely sure no one goes near her own totem. Arthur is just staring, silent. River holds two fingers up, die perfectly balanced.

"It tells you truth from falsehoods," she tells Arthur, half question.

"Yes," he says, after a beat. "Not now that you've got it. But it did."

"I know what it says," she tells him. "I knew before, too." She smiles at him, beautiful and guileless, paying no attention to the silence all around her. "Won't put you in a box. You're safe."

Arthur swallows. "I… appreciate the thought."

Thing is, Mal thinks, this is nothing near as big as they're all feeling it to be. Sure, they're in space; ain't too easy laying your hands on something you'd be sure no one else around you has touched, and Arthur will sleep again before they reach planetside. But he's been around these dream walking folk long enough, near-frequent enough, that he knows these things are easily solved – take anything at all and cut off a piece, tucked in some corner where no one will see you, and it's done, new secret in your hand.

He's been near them enough, though, that he knows some approximation of what Arthur's feeling just now, what they're all feeling on his behalf. It can't be too easy a thing, watching your entire reality totter on the fingers of a crazy, barefoot, messy-haired girl, one leg in the air and head cocked for answers.

"River," Simon says, clearly lost but trying to do his part (Mal supposes he ought to give him points for that, even if he's all too often just a little bit too slow), "Give it back. It isn't yours."

River flicks a glance at him, acknowledging and writing it off all at once. She refocuses on Arthur.

"It tells truths from falsehoods," she says again. "Tells you what's real?"

Arthur is studying her. He seems to have finally passed through shock and out; his eyes are watchful, careful.

"I don't think it can work for two people," he tells her. "It defeats the purpose."

River stares at him. She looks down at the die on her fingers, back up. "I know all of them," she says, and it sounds to Mal like she's pleading, back to little girl asking reassurance. At his side, Cobb's hand is clenching around his wedding ring. Seems all this time of working in lies has taught him when someone is telling truth.

"I don't think it can work that way," Arthur says, like he's apologizing. "It only means you can lie to them, now."

There's silence. Ariadne says, gentle and unsure, "You could make one for yourself. It's not hard."

River laughs. Her foot's still crossed behind her other calf, hair hanging in her eyes. She's standing straight and graceful, and her laugh is grating, jangling and sharp, unpleasant on the ear. "That only tells you no one's lying but the one who made it."

Ariadne flicks a look at Cobb, up at Mal by the railing. She falls silent.

"Come on, mei mei," Simon says, taking a few steps in towards them. He takes River by her shoulders, carefully, tugs a bit so that she finally moves to stand both feet on the ground. "Give it back."

"No," Arthur says, quietly. "She can keep it."

Simon gives him one more confused look. "All right. Thank you."

They watch him walk with her, one hand on her shoulder, the other on her arm. No one says a word until they're out the door.

 

~*~*~

 

Yusuf and Simon are deep into a discussion Mal can't follow at all. He suspected they were cheating, at first, that half those never-ending words were some code to do with the cards they're holding. River's wandered in halfway through the game, though, and now she's sitting cross-legged on the table, winding in and out of their talk as if it makes perfect sense to her.

He looks across the table, and Mal grins at him, shrugging. Clearly he's not alone.

"Simon," the shepherd says, while Ariadne deals cards around in a way that's a little too expert for Mal's comfort, "have you ever dealt in dream-walking?"

"I never even knew it was more than theoretically possible," Simon says. "This is – fascinating."

"Well, it hasn't been too long since it was only theory," Yusuf says, flipping a card onto the pile nearest to Jayne. Mal frowns down at his cards. "They really only started making serious headway during the war, you know."

Mal, at least, knows this only too well. Wasn't like the Alliance truly needed the edge, but they'd certainly put it to use; it messed with morale, most of all, knowing no secrets were safe. He knows, too, this is part of why the Cobbs' crew likes it, beating the Alliance with the butt of their own gun.

"Do you like it?" Inara asks. She smiles when Yusuf looks at her, taps her cards. "It seems so odd, creating a formula for a dream someone else will build. Does it feel… familiar, being inside it?"

Yusuf smiles. "Not at all," he says. "Only in that I know Mal's designs by now, and the others'. Sometimes I can tell who the dreamer is – well, could have, if I didn't know already."

"This room," Ariadne says, suddenly, looking around. "I knew it looked familiar! Cobb, the job on Yarit – you used this exact room. I can't believe you."

Mal looks up; Arthur, sitting by Yusuf, is looking pained, but unsurprised. Mal is making a face, but it's tolerant, half-amused.

"Dom is – not the most well-principled of architects," she says.

"I'm principled enough," he protests, smiling. "It was a spur of the moment thing. We had to hurry."

"Well," she says, and she turns her smile on Mal, so unexpected that he has to smile back at her, "I'll admit, it was nice seeing it again."

He thinks to say something back, at least to swallow in that gorram smile, but before he can decide Eames is saying, "Well! Does this mean I've won?" And the whole thing devolves into loud voices and recriminations and vows that he'll never be allowed to play again.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for silk_mistress in the [crossover exchange 2010](http://community.livejournal.com/xover_exchange), for the prompt: _The Mal's are old lovers in the Firefly 'verse. Boy Mal smuggles stuff as usual, while Girl Mal infiltrates dreams (using inception technology)._ With many thanks to silk_mistress for the wonderful prompt, and to Kael for the excellent last-minute beta (all remaining mistakes etc).

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [All Hands Stand By Free Falling (No Rebel Alliance remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/412079) by [theleaveswant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/theleaveswant/pseuds/theleaveswant)




End file.
